Building a dynasty

Warriors implement their blueprint for success

Building a dynasty

Warriors implement their blueprint for success

It was earth-shattering news when Joe Lacob and Peter Guber purchased the Warriors from Chris Cohan in July 2010. People were shocked to learn that Lacob’s group had outfoxed someone who usually gets his way, Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison. But it was more than that. How could this long-downtrodden franchise be worth $450 million, at that time the most ever spent for a North American sports franchise?

No set of research data could justify such an expense — unless you included the Warriors’ attendance.

In the 16 years Cohan owned the team, the Warriors averaged 30 wins per season and made the playoffs only once. The team’s average attendance did not dip below 12,000 per game, and it was a pulsating 18,000-plus over each of Cohan’s final five seasons.

In short, the era was a dismal failure — and a runaway smash. How do you put a price on that? Add the Bay Area as a potential gold mine for any aggressive business enterprise, and maybe it wasn’t such a crazy idea. In fact, let’s just make that official: Most reports indicate the franchise is now worth nearly $2 billion.

Warriors owners Joe Lacob (left) and Peter Guber hand out championship rings in 2015 after the Warriors’ first NBA title since 1975.

(Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle 2015 | San Francisco Chronicle)

From the moment Lacob and Guber first appeared before the public, at a splashy news conference along the Embarcadero, it was apparent they had their eyes on San Francisco. Their dream becomes reality after this coming season, when the team moves into Chase Center in Mission Bay. What has taken place in Oakland, however, puts Golden State squarely among the most dominant, influential, crowd-pleasing franchises of modern sports history.

The notion of duplicating that — anywhere, anytime— would be a bit ambitious, to say the least.

As much as people around the NBA would like to believe the Warriors hijacked the league, unfairly building an unstoppable machine, they came upon their success quite honestly, through traditional means. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson had been drafted by the previous regime — intriguing choices, but offering little hint that, as the “Splash Brothers,” they would change everyone’s way of strategic thinking. Draymond Green lasted until the 35th pick of the 2012 draft. Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bogut arrived via trade. Shaun Livingston had wandered through much of the NBA landscape before the Warriors signed him in 2014. And for all the criticism that rained down upon Kevin Durant and the Warriors in 2016, he was a free agent, available to any team.

The Warriors’ new owners endured a couple of dismal seasons before head coach Mark Jackson engineered a two-year playoff run. Jackson will be remembered for instilling a defensive mentality into his shot-happy roster, knowing championships are not won without a stifling defense. But it was the hiring of head coach Steve Kerr that made the Warriors a complete and cohesive team.

Rookie guard Stephen Curry had his first experience with Bay Area microphones. The annual Golden State Warriors media day was held at the Warriors practice facility at the Oakland Marriott hotel Monday September 28, 2009. (Brant Ward / The Chronicle | San Francisco Chronicle)

Seasoned NBA fans tend to be a little crusty in their evaluations, recalling the greatness of dynasties past — Bill Russell’s Celtics, Willis Reed’s Knicks, Magic Johnson’s Lakers — as a way of diminishing the modern game. In their sudden rush to the 2015 championship, the Warriors silenced every skeptic. No team ever moved the ball with more flourish and humility. The Warriors took the court as a particularly close set of brothers, intent only on making the next man look good. And with Curry and Thompson firing away from long range — brazenly, absurdly, whatever the circumstances — the three-point shot was no longer viewed as a convenient asset. It would become essential to any winning formula.

It was about time, incidentally, that the Warriors scored heavily in the draft. Over the previous 30 years leading up to the Curry selection, Golden State’s first-round draft picks included Russell Cross, Tellis Frank, Chris Gatling, Cliff Rozier, Todd Fuller, Jeff Foster, Ike Diogu, Patrick O’Bryant and Anthony Randolph. Put them all together and you’ve got a solid cast for “Nowhere Town.”

As it turned out, the Warriors were growing right along with Oakland. A certain nostalgia accompanies the early years, when Coliseum Arena patrons represented the essence of racial, cultural and economic diversity. The gentrification process has found Oakland viewed as a hip, artistic place, a cool alternative to San Francisco wealth. But there will long be fond memories of blue-collar crowds and pristine moments: Rick Barry appearing to shoot, then rifling a bullet pass at the height of his jump ... Nate Thurmond’s pure class and intimidating presence around the basket ... Purvis Short’s rainbow jumpers ... Bernard King steaming down the left side for a two-handed dunk ... Eric (Sleepy) Floyd scoring 29 points in a playoff quarter against the Lakers ... Antawn Jamison scoring 51 points against Seattle in December 2000, then another 51 in the next game against the Lakers.

It’s just that prosperity never seemed sustainable for the Warriors — until now.

Warriors players celebrate after clinching the NBA title with a win in Game 6 of the 2015 NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.

The pages of history most fondly will remember Curry, a scintillating constant through the championships of 2015, ’17 and ’18. As the Warriors travel the country, Curry draws crowds of excited kids and curious adults just to watch his exotic, awe-inspiring warm-up routine. Then the game starts, and with Curry firmly established as the greatest outside shooter the NBA has ever seen, there’s a thrilling sense that anything might happen.

Educated fans realize, however, that the Warriors’ historic nature is widespread. Even the great Wilt Chamberlain, a man who once averaged 50 points per game for a season, never scored 37 points in a quarter — but Thompson did that, against Sacramento in 2015. Green, as an innovative power forward — scorer, fastbreak floor leader, rebounder, multi-positional defender, gifted and generous passer — had people scouring NBA lore for comparisons. (Some took that search all the way back to the great Maurice Stokes, of the Cincinnati Royals, in the late 1950s.)

OAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 04: Head coach Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors talks to Kevin Durant #35 during their preseason game against the Los Angeles Clippers at ORACLE Arena on October 4, 2016 in Oakland, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly a (Ezra Shaw / Getty Images | San Francisco Chronicle)

Then Durant arrived, and things got ridiculous. Here was a 7-foot man who could hang with Curry in a shooting contest, who handled the ball like a guard, who could abandon his post as a pure three-point shooter and drive through the lane for a vicious slam dunk. When the Warriors clinched their first title, in 2015 on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ floor, the exuberant Curry and Green stared at each in wide-eyed amazement, yelling “What!” Now carry that to the present day: What? The Warriors have Durant, too?

If fans around the country can’t see past their resentment of a winner, they’re missing the Warriors’ undeniable element of organizational coolness. General manager Bob Myers grew up in the East Bay, building a shrine to the Warriors with photos, newspaper clippings, hats and other memorabilia in his bedroom. If he looks like a player at an imposing 6-foot-6, it’s because he played for UCLA in the mid-’90s and still enjoys pickup games with his staff. Myers is so cool now, players call him to see if they might become Warriors. (That’s how the signing of DeMarcus Cousins was launched.)

It’s old news that Warriors President Rick Welts became the first prominent male figure in professional sports to publicly announce he is gay. Through a long career, including several years in the NBA’s New York headquarters, Welts was instrumental in creating the Dream Team, the WNBA and All-Star weekend. Now focused on the Warriors’ community efforts and Chase Center arena, Welts has joined the ranks of basketball royalty, having been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor this year.

NBA Commissioner David Stern, left, poses with the No. 11 overall draft pick, Washington State guard Klay Thompson, who was selected by the Golden State Warriors in the NBA basketball draft Thursday, June 23, 2011, in Newark, N.J. less

NBA Commissioner David Stern, left, poses with the No. 11 overall draft pick, Washington State guard Klay Thompson, who was selected by the Golden State Warriors in the NBA basketball draft Thursday, June 23, ... more

Photo: Mel Evans / AP

Photo: Mel Evans / AP

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NBA Commissioner David Stern, left, poses with the No. 11 overall draft pick, Washington State guard Klay Thompson, who was selected by the Golden State Warriors in the NBA basketball draft Thursday, June 23, 2011, in Newark, N.J. less

NBA Commissioner David Stern, left, poses with the No. 11 overall draft pick, Washington State guard Klay Thompson, who was selected by the Golden State Warriors in the NBA basketball draft Thursday, June 23, ... more

Photo: Mel Evans / AP

Warriors implement their blueprint for success

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The first thing to know about Kerr, in a basketball sense, is that he owns eight NBA championship rings: Three as the Warriors’ head coach, three more as a teammate of Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls, and two more with Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs. Longtime friends prefer to know Kerr as the guy who wrote sarcastic weekly columns (along with Michael Silver, now an esteemed NFL writer) for their Pacific Palisades high school newspaper. For the players, he’s the whip-smart coach who rarely loses his temper, makes his practices fun and seems to have a hilarious wisecrack for every occasion. For the sport in general, he’s a man who consistently speaks out, forcefully and eloquently, on troubling social and political issues. And he’s done all this in the wake of back surgery (2015) that did not go well, creating leakage in his spinal cord and causing him discomfort to this day.

This is how championships are built, with aggressive ownership, clever planning, a measure of good luck and a policy of inclusion when it comes to big decisions. Two men who have moved to other organizations, Travis Schlenk and the legendary Jerry West, were vital to the process. A little-known staffer, Nick U’Ren, came to Kerr with a crazy idea during the 2015 Finals — let’s start Iguodala ahead of Bogut — and it worked. Kerr was quick to give U’Ren full credit, and if the plan had backfired, Kerr would have taken the fall.

Something to remember whenever the Warriors’ mighty run ends and historical comparisons are made: In the year they didn’t beat Cleveland in the Finals (2016), they staged a regular-season performance that ranks with any team’s for sustained excitement. They opened the season with 24 straight wins, finished with an NBA-record 73, and in contrast to the somewhat blase attitude that accompanies the team’s success today, that season had the Bay Area in a passionate uproar for six solid months. Festive neighborhood parties became a staple. It took a very good reason for fans to miss even a single telecast.

For Chris Mullin, staying in touch from afar as head coach of his beloved St. John’s University, the Warriors’ performances cut straight to his heart. “It’s pretty incredible,” he said. “I tell my guys, the talent is obvious, but watch how they sacrifice for each other, and how it all starts with Steph and Klay. You talk about bringing in Durant and Cousins, but those guys make it work because they can play any style. They’ll make anyone fit in.”

Will Mullin be there for that final game in Oakland? “Not sure about the regular season, but I watch this team as often as I can,” he said. “It’s the most talented team ever. Obviously, time will tell, but now you’ve got five guys you can say are in the NBA’s top three at their position, or even No. 1 in some cases. Come on, we’ve never seen that.

“Put it this way: I’ll be at Game 4 when they sweep the Finals next year. I’m putting it on my calendar right now.”